May I, 1909-] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
693 
it up closely, but it did not break. He repeated 
this fifteen times before he was successful. 
While we were camped on the beach patiently 
waiting for a chance to reach the larger rocks, 
\ve succeeded in scaling some of the. smaller in¬ 
shore rocks at low tide. The top of one of 
these was the citadel of an old gull with two 
mottled offspring in the nest. A pair of young 
gulls are interesting chaps, so we kidnapped 
these. We soon had to increase our clam and 
fish supply and establish a special store for the 
youngsters. Each had an appetite like a small 
thrashing machine. About meal time, which 
they had an idea occurred every hour in the 
day, they began begging in a high-keyed 
whistle. 
Spotsky and Grabsky, for so the adopted chil¬ 
dren were named, readily “caught on’’ to the 
source of the food supply and acquired the habit 
of following us about or coming when we called. 
Spotsky, the larger of the two, was so named 
for his excellent powers of spotting everything 
eatable. Grabsky had the well-developed traits 
of his ancestors and was peculiarly adapted to 
grabbing everything that was good. We took 
the youngsters with us when we went to the 
rocks. When I first pulled myself up on the 
ledge we had selected for a tent site, I found 
myself kneeling in a gull’s nest with three 
spotted nestlings. I transferred these to an¬ 
other niche and added Spotsky and Grabsky to 
the family. This was a pleasing arrangement 
to us, as the youngsters needed their meals more 
often than we ate, and when we were busy we 
shifted the responsibility of caring for them 
upon our hostess. She made no visible objec¬ 
tions to having her family enlarged. She 
alighted on the ledge, disgorged a half-digested 
supply of fish, while the young stood by and 
gobbled it up as fast as it appeared. The ar¬ 
rangement pleased Spot and Grab immensely, 
for after partaking of all the rations dealt out 
by the parent gulls, they would always come at 
meal time, sit around our board and whistle for 
the scraps that were left. 
There are many tragedies on the rocks where 
untold thousands dwell. The evening of the 
second day I caught a large rock cod. When 
I tossed the entrails to the young gulls in camp. 
Spot and Grab both made a dive for their sup¬ 
per. A third chick rushed up and they all began 
tugging and sitting back on their haunches like 
a lot of playful pups with a gunny sack. Sud¬ 
denly a piece gave way and backward went the 
third chick over the edge. Climbing down along 
the ragged ledge in the dusk to a point thirty 
feet below I found him lifeless. 
William L. Finley, 
[to be continued.] 
The Deadly Wire. 
Lockport, N. Y., April 20.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: On Saturday last I was asked to come 
and identify “a curious bird with red eyes and 
scaly feet that had been caught in the alley.” 
The janitor of a fire company had it in a canary 
bird cage and had given it a generous supply of 
wheat. 
The bird was a horned grebe (Colymbus 
auntus) and since seeing it I have seen and 
heard of four others having been picked up dead 
in the same locality, which was near the main 
office of the Bell Telephone Co. The birds were 
probably attracted by the electric lights and flew 
against the telephone wires. 
Sunday morning, while crossing the Lockport 
and Buffalo trolley tracks, two miles west of 
the city, 1 picked up a male yellow-bellied sap- 
sucker {Sphyrapictis varius). As the head was 
the only part injured it had probably flown 
against a moving car which, on this line from 
Lockport to North Tonawanda, often runs a 
mile a minute. For seven miles the track is 
perfectly straight and only for a slight grade 
you can see the track nearly the whole distance. 
J. L. D.avison. 
Field Museum of Natural History. 
The annual report of the Director to the 
Trustees of the Field IMuseum of Natural His¬ 
tory for 1908 covers much ground, dealing 
with all the work of the museum at large and 
more particularly with various details of the 
work of departments. The museum continues 
to grow in respect to more careful arrangement 
and better protection of its material as well as 
THE PET SEA GULL CHICKS. 
in an increased number of new exhibition cases 
in all departments and an extension of the ex¬ 
hibition area. It is to be regretted that the build¬ 
ings, which date back to the Chicago World’s 
Fair, are growing outwardly shabby. Efforts 
have been made to improve their appearance and 
at first and for several months the results 
seemed successful, but the lifeless plaster, the 
decayed fiber of the staff would not hold the 
renewing material, and while the general appear¬ 
ance of the building is much improved it now 
seems that nothing can be done to protect or 
conceal the decomposing plaster and staff with 
which the brick walls of the building are cov¬ 
ered. 
In the spring the twenty-eighth lecture course 
was given in the months of March and April, 
while the twenty-ninth course was offered in 
October and November. The various depart¬ 
ments of anthropology, botany, geology and 
zoology show interesting advances. New ex¬ 
hibition cases show important ceremonies among 
the Pawnees and the Sac and Fox. The ex¬ 
plorations of the late Dr. Wm. Jones in the 
Philippines are referred to. There is a long 
list of accessions to the collections and to the 
library. The report as always is very hand¬ 
somely illustrated. 
Alaska’s First Migrant. 
Copper Center, Alaska, April i.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: Late numbers of Forest .\nd 
Stream begin to tell us of spring in the South. 
We are glad to know that friend robin is on 
the way and should reach us'about tbe time this 
gets to you. We have already had our first as¬ 
surance of coming spring in the arrival two 
weeks ago of Passerma nivalis, the snowflake. 
This, in the interior of Alaska, is really the first 
migrant to arrive. They left us only a few 
months ago in December, but are now daily ar¬ 
riving and congregating in great flocks. It is 
rather difficult at this time to distinguish male 
from female, but liy April 20 the color transfor¬ 
mation will be complete. The flocks will then 
contain thousands, increasing daily in number, 
and then while the wedding bells are still ring¬ 
ing, in less than forty-eight hours every bird 
will vanish as if by magic. If we see them 
again before November it will be only a glimpse 
now and then of a solitary bird in thicket or 
woods, and we can scarcely recognize them as 
our snowflake of March. 
Just now the snowflakes frequent the partly 
bare spots on and along the Government trail. 
A flock of several thousand will swoop down 
from somewhere, stay a few minutes, and then 
suddenly the entire flock darts away into space, 
only, to alight on the trail again a hundred feet 
aw'ay. The military telegraph line is a regular 
death trap to thousands of these and other birds. 
Paralleling the trail as it does, it is sure to catch 
them both ways. Last spring I walked along the 
line a distance of half a mile and picked up 
twenty-seven dead snowflakes. In an hour I 
returned over the same ground and found eleven 
cripples and freshly killed birds. 
Foxes and other animals patrol the line, as 
evidenced by the silent witnesses, a clot of blood, 
a few feathers and tracks on the snow. About 
the time the snowflakes disappear, the great mass 
of our summer residents will be coming in and 
then we will know that spring is here. 
C. W. H. Heideman. 
Alabama Bird Day. 
The Superintendent of Education of Alabama 
has set apart May 4 as a day to be celebrated 
as Bird Day in the public schools. The first 
Bird Day in Alabama was celebrated in 1908, 
and the occasion aroused much interest and en¬ 
thusiasm. The day is treated as a holiday from 
the usual school routine and selections from the 
Bird Day book will be read and told to the 
children. This Bird Day book is the result of 
the work of Hon. John H. Wallace, Jr., State 
Game and Fish Commissioner, who collected the 
material which it contains. The short selections 
in verse and prose are well chosen and suited to 
persons of varying ages. The booklet is illus¬ 
trated by a multitude of colored plates, not new 
to be sure, but for purposes of attracting the 
children’s attention or of giving them an idea 
how the bird looks just as useful as if they 
were new. Superintendent Harry C. Gunnels’ 
prefatory remarks end with this excellent sen¬ 
tence, “Teach the children about the birds, the 
habits of birds, the necessity of preserving the 
Inrds, and you will do the State and the children 
an incalculable good.” 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained from any 
newsdealer on order. Ask your dealer to supply you 
regularly. 
